Electronic business postal system

ABSTRACT

An electronic business postal system collects, clears and delivers electronic business mail through a closed access, secure messaging system. A collection subsystem consists of access portals that are associated with secured system nodes. The access portals provide authenticated users access to the system to send and retrieve electronic business mail that includes postal system electronic delivery addresses, physical delivery addresses, or both. Secured message servers that are associated with the respective access portals process the electronic business mail into uniquely identified messages for delivery over the system nodes and also process received messages to provide the corresponding electronic business mail to the intended recipients through associated access portals. A delivery subsystem directs the messages through the system nodes associated with the senders&#39; access portals to the system nodes associated with the recipients&#39; access portals. A clearance subsystem confirms the integrity of both the messages and their delivery and ensures that each message is delivered once and intact.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

The present application is a continuation of commonly assigned copendingU.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/287,310, which was filed on Oct. 6,2016 by Liam Church et al. for a ELECTRONIC BUSINESS POSTAL SYSTEM,which is a continuation of commonly assigned copending U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 14/299,524, which was filed on Jun. 9, 2014 by LiamChurch et al. for a ELECTRONIC BUSINESS POSTAL SYSTEM, now U.S. Pat. No.9,477,948 issued on Oct. 25, 2016, which is a continuation of commonlyassigned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/971,386, which was filed onAug. 20, 2013, by Liam Church et al. for a ELECTRONIC BUSINESS POSTALSYSTEM, now U.S. Pat. No. 9,406,050 issued on Aug. 2, 2016, which is acontinuation of commonly assigned U.S. patent application Ser. No.12/569,465, which was filed on Sep. 29, 2009, by Liam Church et al. fora ELECTRONIC BUSINESS POSTAL SYSTEM, now U.S. Pat. No. 8,600,912 issuedon Dec. 3, 2013, which claims priority from U.S. Provisional PatentApplication Ser. No. 61/101,200, which was filed on Sep. 30, 2008, byLiam Church et al. for an ELECTRONIC BUSINESS POSTAL SYSTEM; all ofwhich are hereby incorporated by reference.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Field of the Invention

The invention relates generally to postal delivery systems and, moreparticularly, to postal delivery systems that provide electronicdelivery of business documents.

Background Information

In the course of everyday business, parties enter into contracts andsupply and receive goods and services on the basis of these contracts.The parties to these contracts need to be certain of their rights andobligations within the contract and the parties may wish to recordactivity under the contract so that each party is clear on the status ofthe contract. In addition, each party may wish to rely on the recordedactivity in the event of a dispute between the parties. For these andother reasons, contracts are often committed to paper and a copy isprovided to each party. Also, for these reasons, a concise record ofactivities within the contract is often committed to paper and a copy isprovided to each party to the contract. This activity paper is oftencalled “Transactional Paper” and is often viewed as a formal record ofthe date and time that a contractual event has happened.

This method of recording and creating a copy is balanced in favor of allparties to the contract and each party can refer to a complete record ofactivities in the event of a dispute. In the case where the parties tothe contract are adjacent at the time of the event, a copy of the paperrecord is transferred by hand between the parties. In the case where theparties are not adjacent at the time of the event, a copy of the paperrecord may be placed into an envelope, addressed and delivered over a“Postal Network.” When transactional paper is sent through the PostalNetwork it is often called transactional mail or business mail.

For transactional mail, the Postal Network is often seen as an efficientway to communicate a large volume of business documents between a largenumber of addresses in a secure manner. It consists of a known number ofcollection points, which may be located close to the entities or naturalpersons that generate the transactional mail, and a known number ofdelivery points at which the legal entities or natural persons arelocated.

It is this combination of concise transactional recording of contractualevents, i.e., the creation of copies for each party and an efficient anduniversally available secure distribution system connecting contractualparties, that makes transactional mail a globally acceptable means ofcommunicating for business. It is equally available to all and allowsall parties to operate independently and in a disconnected manner.

Postal systems within the Postal Network perform the functions ofcollecting mail pieces from, for example, dedicated post boxes, businesspremises, post office windows, and so forth, routing the mail pieces topostal system sorting centers and distributing the mail to recipientmail boxes, businesses, and so forth. The mail pieces of interest arebusiness and transactional correspondence, such as letters, invoices,account statements, contracts, and so forth. These mail pieces are paperthat must be handled at collection, routing and sorting, anddistribution operations, adding considerably to the overall cost of themailing. Another important consideration is the environmental impact ofso much paper.

Certain businesses, such as banks, utilities and so forth, may provideuser account information on-line for viewing by the user. The user mustrequest access to the information separately from each of the respectivebusinesses and, once permission is granted by a given business, the useris permitted access to information that remains solely under the controlof the given business. This business-controlled access method may beanticompetitive by not delivering data to the user for independentaccess and use, and/or by combining relevant transaction informationwith other data such as information about services offered by thatbusiness or related business, and so forth, to obscure access, or byproviding data in inconsistent forms, and thus, preventing the user fromaccessing and moving the data out of the control of the business.

Further, the businesses may provide certain information to the users byemail, though firewalls and other email system constraints affecting,for example, attachments, may disrupt the communication in a manner thatis not discernable by the sender or the intended receiver. In addition,adequate security for such email communications is often lacking, suchthat it is not advisable to send sensitive information in this manner.Also, email is a person to person form of communication and is thus notparticularly well suited for communication with a legal entity in amanner that is consistent with the recording of a business transaction.Further, it is not easy for businesses to distinguish, within theiremail systems, between contractual communications with customers andpersonal communications with customers.

For these and other reasons, the business and transactionalcorrespondence are not generally handled electronically. Indeed, evenwhen electronic communications are utilized during a transaction, paperconfirmation copies are exchanged via the Postal Network as thetransaction record.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

An electronic business postal system performs collection, clearance anddelivery of electronic business mail through a closed access, securemessaging system. The system includes a collection subsystem thatconsists of access portals that are associated with secured systemnodes. The access portals provide authenticated users access to thesystem to send and retrieve electronic business mail that includespostal system electronic delivery addresses, physical deliveryaddresses, or both. One or more messaging subsystems, which consist ofsecured message servers that are associated with the access portals,process the electronic business mail into uniquely identified messagesfor delivery over the system nodes and also process received messages toprovide the corresponding electronic business mail to the intendedrecipients through associated access portals.

A delivery subsystem directs the messages through the system from thesystem nodes associated with the senders' access portals to the systemnodes associated with the recipients' access portals. The deliverysubsystem includes one or more address registries that associate thepostal system electronic delivery addresses, physical deliveryaddresses, or both, with the system nodes and, in turn, access portals.The clearance subsystem operating at the system nodes confirms theintegrity of both the messages and their delivery and ensures that eachmessage is delivered once and intact to the access portal associatedwith the electronic delivery address.

The system nodes may be grouped into one or more of global regions,local regions and associated individuals. The one or more addressregistries then associate the electronic and/or physical deliveryaddresses with nodes in the groups, as appropriate for efficientdelivery of the messages, and thus, the electronic business mailings,over the system.

To uniquely identify the messages, the system uniquely identifies thesystem nodes and uses the node identifiers to also identify the messagesoriginated by the respective nodes. The system may further include inthe message identifiers a monotonically increasing sequence number orother order indicator, which the clearance subsystem may uses to ensurethat a given message is delivered always and only once. The system mayfurther encode the messages using a cyclic redundancy check code and thelike, such that the clearance subsystem can detect and discard anymessages that have been altered.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The invention description below refers to the accompanying drawings, ofwhich:

FIG. 1 is a functional block diagram of a system constructed inaccordance with the invention;

FIG. 2 is a functional block diagram that further illustrates the systemof FIG. 1;

FIG. 3A illustrates the format of traditional business mail;

FIGS. 3B-C illustrates structured documents that are utilized by thesystem of FIGS. 1 and 2;

FIG. 4 illustrates alternative collection devices;

FIG. 5 is a functional block diagram of a data manager of FIG. 1; and

FIG. 6 is a flow chart of the document processing operations of thesystem of FIG. 1.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF AN ILLUSTRATIVE EMBODIMENT

Referring to FIG. 1, an electronic business postal system includes aclosed access network 100 of secured system nodes 102 and a collectionsubsystem that consists of access portals 104 that are associated withthe system nodes. The access portals, which may be business applications104 ₁, business portals 104 ₂, or mobile devices 104 ₃ that containsecured system nodes, are the only access points to the network. Theaccess portals allow authenticated users to send and retrieve properlyaddressed electronic business and transactional documents andcorrespondence over the system. The properly addressed electronicbusiness documents and correspondence may be contracts, invoices,payment authorizations, letters, and so forth, and are referred tohereinafter as “electronic business mailings.”

One or more messaging subsystems consist of one or more secured messageservers 108 that are associated with the access portals 104. The messageservers process the electronic business mailings to produce messagesthat are uniquely identified across the network 100. A deliverysubsystem 110 routes the respective messages over the system nodes 102,from the originating system nodes associated with the senders' accessportals to the destination system nodes associated with the accessportals through which the recipients gain access to the system to, forexample, retrieve the electronic business mailings. The deliverysubsystem utilizes one or more address registries 111 that associatepostal system electronic delivery addresses, physical deliveryaddresses, or both, with the system nodes and, as appropriate, withparticular associated access portals if a given system node isassociated with more than one access portal.

A clearance subsystem 114 operates at the system nodes 102 to check theintegrity of the messages and also the delivery of the messages, toensure that each message, and thus, the corresponding electronicbusiness mailing, is delivered, delivered intact, and delivered onlyonce. The various subsystems are discussed in more detail below.

The respective message servers 108 and system nodes 102 include securityprocesses 103 that operate in a known manner to ensure that the serversand nodes utilize only authorized processes to produce the messages atthe senders' access portals, route the messages, and provide theelectronic business mailings to the recipients' access portals. In thisway, interlopers can not disrupt the operations of the secured nodesand/or insert unauthorized messages into the system or re-directmessages that are within the system. The system thus ensures that theelectronic business mailings are handled in a manner that satisfies thecollection, clearance and distribution requirements of national andinternational postal service conventions and agreements, withoutrequiring an exchange of paper. For ease of illustration, the securityprocesses 103 are illustrated in the drawing as operating at the systemnodes 102. However, the security processes operate also at the messageservers 108.

Referring also to FIG. 2, the access portals 104 are operated inconjunction with postal authorities or third-party hosts, such as banksor other companies, that provide authentication operations. The accessportals may, for example, be established to service users in aparticular geographic area, such as a city or state. Large entities orgovernment agencies may also operate their own access portals for thesending and retrieving of the electronic business mailings provided bythem to the system or directed to them over the system.

A user selects an appropriate access portal 104 and provides thenecessary information for authentication to set up a postal systemaccount with a postal system electronic delivery address. If a postalauthority operates the access portals, the user selects the accessportal that corresponds to his or her geographic area. If third partieshost some or all of the access portals, the user may, as an example,select an access portal operated by a national bank or by another typeof third party host, such as Google. Once the user's postal systemaccount is established, the user may connect to the selected accessportal over the telephone 202, through a television 204, a PC 206, orother electronic device, to send and retrieve electronic businessmailings.

As discussed in more detail below, the system may also include one ormore hybrid access portals 105, which receive electronic delivery of theelectronic business mailings that have physical addresses but nocorresponding postal system electronic delivery addresses are known. Thehybrid access portals, which provide access to the system 100 for thePostal Network, allow the Postal Network to print out the business mailthat corresponds to the electronic business mailings at post officesthat are local to the respective physical delivery addresses. The postoffices then deliver the business mail as paper mail pieces overestablished postal delivery routes in conformance with establishedpostal service rules and regulations. To maintain the privacy of thecommunications, the post office may enclose the contents of the businessmail in an envelope that reveals only the information required fordelivery, i.e., the physical delivery address, franking information and,as appropriate, the sender's return address information. In addition,the hybrid access portals may be associated with other services that areentrusted to provide mail piece deliveries to physical deliveryaddresses.

Referring again to FIG. 1 and also to FIG. 6, the access portals 104, instep 600, authenticate users and/or applications using authenticationcapabilities 109, which may be provided by the postal authority or thirdparty host (not shown). The authentication capabilities operate in aknown manner using, for example, combinations of user names andpasswords and/or other identifying information, to penetrate associatedlayers of security. The user thus enters his user name and passwordthrough the access portal, and the authentication process, operating ina known manner, determines if the user name/password combination isvalid. Once authenticated, a user has unlimited access through theaccess portal to provide electronic business mailings for delivery overthe system (step 602) and/or retrieve electronic business mailings thathave been directed through the system to the user's postal systemelectronic delivery address. In addition, the authenticated user hasunlimited access to any user data that is being managed and retained bya data manager 112, which is a data management and storage service thatmay available through the access portal, as discussed in more detailbelow.

The one or more messaging subsystems, which are built utilizingmessaging operations performed by Escher Group Limited's Riposte®software, operate together to uniquely identify the respective messagesthat are sent over the electronic business postal system 100. Themessaging subsystems assign identifiers that are unique over the entiresystem 100 to the system nodes 102, and utilize the identifiers of thesystem nodes that originate the respective messages, that is, the nodesthat are associated with the senders' access portals, to generate theunique identifiers for the messages. The message servers 108 may, forexample, include all or a portion of the system node identifiers in themessage identifiers, and/or may manipulate the system node identifiersto produce corresponding values that are then included in the messageidentifiers. In addition, the message servers may include in the messageidentifiers monotonically increasing sequence numbers and/or other orderindicators such as date, time and so forth (step 604).

The message subsystems may further encode the messages to produce checksums, which are then used by the clearance subsystem to ensure that themessages are delivered intact. Thus, the message servers 108 use cyclicredundancy check codes or the like in a known manner to encode themessages, for example, byte-by-byte, to produce corresponding checksums. The check sums are then included in the messages, as part of thesystem information (step 606).

The message server 108 also includes as system information a frankingcode or other identification information that indicates how the cost ofthe communication is funded (step 608). The users will thus maintaindeposit accounts within their postal system accounts or link theirpostal system accounts to banking accounts, and so forth, to fund thecost of delivering the electronic business mailings through theelectronic business postal system.

The message server may also encrypt the body or content/data of thebusiness mailings, using an encryption code in a known manner, to ensurethe privacy of the information (step 609). The delivery address andsystem information are not encrypted, however, so that the informationis available for message routing through the system nodes and to theassociated message servers.

The delivery subsystem 110, in steps 610, 612 and 702, uses deliveryaddress information from the business mailings to enter the addressregistries 111 and identify respective destination nodes that associatedwith the electronic and/or physical delivery addresses. In addition oralternatively, the delivery subsystem may identify a system node that iswithin a global or regional group of nodes that, in turn, will route themessage to the destination node or to a node in another group of nodes,and so forth. The address registries may operate in known manners asdata bases, look-up tables, ordered lists, and so forth.

If the delivery subsystem 110 cannot associate a physical deliveryaddress with a corresponding user postal system electronic deliveryaddress, the delivery subsystem, in steps 704 and 706, selects as thepostal system electronic delivery address an appropriate hybrid mailaccess portal 105 (FIG. 2). The subsystem thus selects the hybrid accessportal that is associated with a post office or other postal or carrierservice that is local to and/or delivers to the physical deliveryaddress. The address registries 111 then associate the selected postalsystem electronic delivery address with the appropriate destination nodeor group node, as described above.

Once the destination node or group node is identified for a givenmessage, the delivery subsystem provides the necessary routinginformation to the message as system information and routes the messageto the next system node (steps 614, 616, 618).

When a system node 102 receives a message, the node determines if themessage is intact (steps 708, 710). Thus, the node encodes the receivedmessage to produce a new check sum and determines if the new check sumis the same as the check sum that is included in the received message.Other operations may be performed in addition to or as alternatives tothe check sum operations, to ensure that the content of the receivedmessage is the same, e.g., byte-by-byte, as the message originated ontothe network. The system node may also determine if the integrity of themessage delivery is maintained, using the sequence number in the messageidentifier to determine, for example, that the message is the nextmessage expected in the delivery sequence (step 712). Alternatively, theintegrity checking of the message and/or the message delivery may bedone at fewer than all of the system nodes or only at the destinationand/or origination nodes, as discussed below.

If the system node 102 determines the message and, as appropriate,message delivery, pass the integrity checks, the node sends the messageto a next system node along the route (step 618). Otherwise, the nodediscards the message (steps 711, 713). The discarding node may notifythe originating node of the discard, and the originating node thenre-sends the message. Alternatively, the originating node may re-sendthe message if an acknowledgement is not received within a predeterminedtime after the message is sent.

When the destination system node 102 receives the message, the nodeperforms the integrity checks on the message and message delivery (steps620, 622, 624). If the message fails either integrity check, thedestination node discards the message and, as appropriate, notifies theoriginating node (step 714). If the message passes both integritychecks, the destination system node sends an acknowledgement of thereceipt of the message to the originating system node, which then alsoconfirms the integrity of the message delivery. In the example, theoriginating node checks that the message has not been received out oforder. If the integrity of the delivery is compromised, the originatingsystem node directs the destination node to discard the receivedmessage. The originating node then re-sends the original message.Otherwise, if the message and its delivery pass the integrity checks atboth the designation node and the originating node, the message server108 associated with the destination node strips the system informationfrom the message, decrypts the message contents, as appropriate, andprovides the corresponding electronic business mailing to the associatedaccess portal 104 that is associated, also, with the intended recipient.

The message server 108 associated with the access portal 104 next, instep 626, processes the received message and provides the correspondingbusiness mailing to access portal 104. The access portal then retainsthe business mailing for later retrieval by the intended recipient or,as appropriate, directs the business mailing to applications thatrequire or manage the information (steps 628, 630, 716). For example, anaccess portal may direct an authorization for payment or an invoice intoa given businesses accounting system based on the delivery addressinformation or other information contained in the electronic businessmailing, as discussed below.

In addition or in the alternative, the access portals 104 may operate adata manager 112 that provides data storage and management capabilitiesfor the business mailings, or the content/data thereof, received and/orsent over the system, operating, for example, as an electronic filingsystem. Referring also to FIG. 5, the data manager may organize the datainto electronic files 113 relating to taxes, licenses, employment,health, bills due, bills paid, checking account information, and soforth. Accordingly, a user may then store electronic tax records, healthrecords, employment records, bills, invoices, payment information,prescription information, and so forth, from a multitude of sources inan organized and secure manner. Through the access portal, the user thenhas unlimited access to any or all of the information received over thesystem, and the user can, for example, further share the information asdesired with others, such as an accountant or medical specialist, bysending the information in electronic business mailings over the system.The data storage and management operations are administered in a knownmanner, such as in the manner of customer relationship management (CRM)operations. The data manager may thus direct the electronic businessmailings to particular files based the information contained in theelectronic business mailing, such as the address information, thecontent/data, the type of document, i.e., invoice, paymentauthorization, the date, and so forth (steps 630, 632).

Referring now to FIGS. 3A-C, the electronic business mailings providedto the system are structured documents 300 (FIG. 3B) that are based onXML, such that the business mailings can be entered and interpretedthrough various operating systems. Traditional business mail 30, asillustrated in FIG. 3A, includes an envelope 31 with a recipient address32, the sender's address or other return mail information 34, andfranking information 33, which are read to route the correspondencethrough the traditional Postal Network. The envelope enclosescorrespondence or other documentation 35, and shields the contents/data36 of the correspondence or documentation from the view of the PostalNetwork personal, to maintain the privacy of the content/data.

FIG. 3B illustrates an example of the structured form 300 utilized forelectronic business mailings by the system 100. The structured formincludes fields for letterhead or a company logo 302; a source languageidentifier 304 that allows the system to interpret messages in variouslanguages; sender and recipient address information 306, 308; a date305; system franking information 310; and contents/data 312. If thesystem operates internationally, space is provided also for country code315. In addition, the structured form may include a message type field314, to indicate a payment, an invoice, and so forth, which therecipient's and/or the sender's access portals may use to direct theelectronic business mailing or the contents/data thereof to appropriateapplications that require the data or to appropriate folders for managedretention through the data manager 112, as discussed above.

The recipient address information 308 may include a physical deliveryaddress, such as a street address or postal box, and/or a postal systemelectronic delivery address, as discussed above.

FIG. 3C illustrates the fields that may be encrypted and those thatremain unencrypted in the messages. As shown in the drawing, the systemencrypts the content or data field 312, which corresponds to thecontent/data 36 of the conventional business mail illustrated in FIG.3A. The address information 306, 308 and as appropriate 315 and thefranking information 310, that is, the information that corresponds tothe information 32-34 printed on a conventional envelope 30, remainunencrypted. Thus, the messages directed over the electronic businesspostal system 100 retain the privacy of the document content/data, as isdone using conventional paper-based mail pieces, in conformance withpostal regulations and conventions.

The system 100 may communicate with alternative carriers that operate inadditional countries or territories. The system thus transfers a messageto an alternative carrier through an appropriate network connection, andin a manner that meets the requirements of applicable postal systemnational and international conventions and agreements that direct postalsystem operations for delivery of mail within the countries orterritories.

As discussed above, the system may include hybrid access portals 105(FIG. 2) that are utilized by the Postal Network or other carrierservices to provide the electronic business mailings in paper form tolocal physical delivery addresses. By using the structured documents,the business mailings may be printed and enclosed in envelopes withstrategically placed cutouts for the information from the address fields306, 308 and 315, and/or the documents may be strategically formattedand folded or paginated, to maintain the privacy of the data containedin the content/data field 312.

Referring to FIG. 4, the system may operate with many different types ofsecure collection and clearance devices, such as electronic mail boxes402 or other transmission devices 404, that communicate with the accessportals to authenticate the users and operate with included securedmessage servers and system nodes, to process the electronic businessmailings into messages and route the messages over the system. Thedevices thus operate with the security capabilities 103 discussed aboveto ensure that the included message servers and nodes operate using theappropriate system processes and also that they can not be tampered withwithout detection.

The system 100 may group the system nodes 102 according to globalregions, such as cites, states or countries, and/or local regions, suchas towns, and/or associated individuals, such as selected companyemployees or departments. The system may, for example, group the systemnodes in a manner that corresponds to Postal Network country codesand/or zip codes or territory codes, for efficient operation of thedelivery subsystem and, in particular, the address registries 111. Asdiscussed above, the delivery subsystem may direct messages to nodeswithin groups, which thereafter direct the messages to the destinationnodes or nodes within other groups or subgroups thereof, and so forth.

The system may also include multiple delivery addresses for a givenuser, and allow the user to set preferences for a given delivery or agiven time period, and so forth. The system may also allow the user toselect different electronic and/or physical delivery addresses fordifferent types of electronic business mailings, e.g., from particularsenders or including particular content such as invoices, paymentauthorizations, and so forth. Alternatively or in addition, the systemmay allow the user to select different electronic and/or physicaldelivery addresses for vacation periods and so forth.

The electronic business postal system 100 provides users with all of theadvantages of the paper-based Postal Network, and also provides thedistinct advantages of not only eliminating the paper in traditionalmail but also ensuring delivery of intact electronic business mailings,that is, ensuring that a business document is not lost enroute and yetassumed to be delivered, or the document is not partially or totallyrendered unintelligible by improper handling by the Postal Network. Inaddition, the system 100 has distinct advantages over existing on-lineservices, provided, for example, by banks, that allow an authenticateduser to view certain of their account while, at the same time, keepingall of the account information under the control of the bank. The system100 instead provides the users with control over their information,similar to the control a user has over the information contained inpaper statements of their accounts, yet without the need for paper andwithout sacrificing the security of the information. For example, thesystem 100 can maintain the user's account data over time, such that theuser can read back through older data at any time. In addition, the usercan send all or a portion of the data to others, such as his/heraccountant, at any time in a secure manner by including the data in anelectronic business mailing directed over the system.

As discussed above, the electronic business postal system 100 providesusers equal access to send and retrieve electronic business mailings, inthe same sense that the Postal Network provides equal access to users ofpaper-based business mail. Also, with the equal access and further basedon the fact that users have unlimited access to the content of theirelectronic business mailings, and the electronic business mailings arestructured documents that present content in a consistent form that canbe entered and interpreted by various operating systems, the system 100is a neutral system in the sense described by the Trans AtlanticConsumer Dialogue (“TACD”) in the document entitled Charter of ConsumerRights in the Digital World, DOC No:INFOSOC 37-38, issued March 2008.Further, the system 100 satisfies many of the consumer rights set forthby the TACD that are not met by known prior systems.

The foregoing description has been limited to a specific embodiment ofthis invention. It will be apparent, however, that variations andmodifications may be made to the invention, the clearance operations maybe performed at some or all of the system nodes, selected system nodesmay perform certain but not all of the clearance operations, processesand processors shown separately may be combined and the processesperformed by a given processor may be performed by combinations ofprocessors, the processes may be performed in hardware, software orfirmware, or any combination thereof, certain processes may be performedin different orders, the system may be used to deliver electronicnon-business mail that meets the requirements of the structured documentand franking, with the attainment of some or all of its advantages.Therefore, it is the object of the appended claims to cover all suchvariations and modifications as come within the true spirit and scope ofthe invention.

What is claimed is:
 1. An access portal of a secure system of nodes, the access portal comprising: processing logic configured to: receive one or more authentication input commands to authenticate a first user registered with the secure system of nodes; receive, after the first user is authenticated, one or more first input commands to create a first electronic business mailing, wherein the created first electronic business mailing is sent over the secure system of nodes to a destination access portal associated with a recipient of the first electronic business mailing; and receive, after the first user is authenticated, one or more second input commands to access a second electronic business mailing from an authenticated sender, wherein the access portal is selected, from a plurality of access portals, to receive a third electronic business mailing including delivery address information and addressed to a second user, wherein the selection is based on a locality of a physical delivery address of the second user when a user postal system electronic delivery address, assigned to registered users, is not included in the delivery address information and the physical delivery address cannot be associated with a corresponding user postal system electronic delivery address.
 2. The access portal of claim 1, wherein the processing logic is further configured to provide one or more print commands to a printer configured to print the third electronic business mailing.
 3. The access portal of claim 1, wherein the processing logic is further configured to provide one or more data entry fields, to the first user, to create the first electronic business mailing.
 4. The access portal of claim 1, wherein the first electronic business mailing is processed into one or more unique messages that are encoded for integrity checks prior to sending the one or more unique messages over the secure system of nodes to the destination access portal.
 5. The access portal of claim 1, wherein the first electronic business mailing is processed into one or more unique messages storing content associated with the first electronic business mailing, and wherein the content is encrypted prior to sending the one or more unique messages over the secure system of nodes to the destination access portal.
 6. The access portal of claim 1, wherein the first electronic business mailing is processed into one or more unique messages and each unique message is provided an identifier to ensure that each unique message is delivered only once to the destination access portal.
 7. The access portal of claim 1, wherein a data manager is configured to store and manage the second electronic business mailing and content associated with the second electronic business mailing.
 8. A method comprising: receiving, at an access portal including processing logic, one or more authentication input commands; utilizing, by the processing logic of the access portal, the one or more authentication input commands to authenticate a first user registered with a secure system of nodes; receiving, at the access portal and after the first user is authenticated, one or more first input commands to create a first electronic business mailing; sending, by the processing logic, the first electronic business mailing to the secure system of nodes such that the first electronic business mailing is sent over the secure system of nodes to a destination access portal associated with a recipient of the first electronic business mailing; receiving, at the access portal and after the first user is authenticated, one or more second input commands to access a second electronic business mailing from an authenticated sender; and receiving, at the access portal, a third electronic business mailing including delivery address information of a second user, wherein the access portal is selected from a plurality of access portals to receive the third electronic business mailing based on a locality of a physical delivery address of the second user when a user postal system electronic delivery address, assigned to registered users, is not included in the delivery address information and the physical delivery address cannot be associated with a corresponding user postal system electronic delivery address.
 9. The method of claim 8, further comprising providing one or more print commands to a printer configured to print the third electronic business mailing.
 10. The method of claim 8, further comprising providing one or more data entry fields, to the first user, to create the first electronic business mailing.
 11. The method of claim 8, further comprising processing the first electronic business mailing into one or more unique messages that are encoded for integrity checks prior to sending the one or more unique messages over the secure system of nodes to the destination access portal.
 12. The method of claim 8, further comprising processing the first electronic business mailing into one or more unique messages storing content associated with the first electronic business mailing, and wherein the content is encrypted prior to sending the one or more unique messages over the secure system of nodes to the destination access portal.
 13. The method of claim 8, further comprising processing the first electronic business mailing into one or more unique messages and each unique message is provided an identifier to ensure that each unique message is delivered only once to the destination access portal.
 14. The method of claim 8, further comprising wherein a data manager stores and manages the second electronic business mailing and content associated with the second electronic business mailing.
 15. An access portal of a secure system of nodes, the access portal comprising: processing logic configured to: receive one or more authentication input commands to authenticate a first user registered with the secure system of nodes; receive, after the first user is authenticated, one or more input commands to create a first electronic business mailing or access a second electronic business mailing, wherein the first electronic business mailing is sent over the secure system of nodes to a destination access portal associated with a recipient after the first electronic business mailing is created utilizing the one or more input commands, or wherein the second electronic business mailing is received at the access portal and accessed after receiving the one or more input commands to access the second electronic business mailing that was transmitted over the secure system of nodes from a registered sender; and receive a third electronic business mailing including delivery address information of a second user, wherein access portal is selected from a plurality of access portals to receive the third electronic business mailing based on a locality of a physical delivery address of the second user when a user postal system electronic delivery address, assigned to registered users, is not included in the delivery address information and the physical delivery address cannot be associated with a corresponding user postal system electronic delivery address.
 16. The access portal of claim 15, wherein the processing logic is further configured to provide one or more print commands to a printer configured to print the third electronic business mailing.
 17. The access portal of claim 15, wherein the processing logic is further configured to provide one or more data entry fields, to the first user, to create the first electronic business mailing when the one or more input commands are received to create the first business mailing.
 18. The access portal of claim 15, wherein the first electronic business mailing is processed into one or more unique messages that are encoded for integrity checks prior to sending the one or more unique messages over the secure system of nodes to the destination access portal.
 19. The access portal of claim 15, wherein the first electronic business mailing is processed into one or more unique messages storing content associated with the first electronic business mailing, and wherein the content is encrypted prior to sending the one or more unique messages over the secure system of nodes to the destination access portal.
 20. The access portal of claim 15, wherein the first electronic business mailing is processed into one or more unique messages and each unique message is provided an identifier to ensure that each unique message is delivered only once to the destination access portal. 